LEADING headteacher Dame Jean Else has warned she will quit her job rather than accept massive cash cuts.

For the past nine years Dame Jean has tirelessly worked to build Whalley Range High School for Girls from a place that was failing to a popular, well-attended and successful school. Her efforts have been praised by government ministers and led to her being recognised in the Queen's honours.

But now she says the future of the Manchester school is at serious risk because of a é600,000 shortfall created by funding cutbacks and sharp increases in National Insurance and pension costs.

And she has told the Manchester Evening News that unless more money is found - from the government or the local authority - she may turn her back on education.

"If nobody resolves this I have thrown away nine years," said Dame Jean, who estimates she would have to lose 20 of the school's 165 staff to balance the books.

Disillusioned

"It would be like turning the clock back to when I arrived - so I might as well retire. I feel so disillusioned.

"The school was going from strength to strength and I will fight to the death for it so the children get the best chance they could have in life. But if we have to fight that hard I might as well retire."

Dame Jean has already written to the government - including a personal letter to Education Secretary Charles Clarke - to make her feelings clear.

"I'm not going to borrow é600,000, but without the money we couldn't run the curriculum as it is now. I'm not going to kill the school by making staff redundant. And not to be able to replace staff would annihilate the school and it would hit rock bottom."

As a very real consequence of the cuts Dame Jean must now consider dropping music from the school curriculum.

School Standards Minister David Milliband told the Manchester Evening News he recognised the contribution Dame Jean had made to Whalley Range. "We obviously take very seriously not just her opinion but that of other headteachers in Manchester and elsewhere.